


Ostrich

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: Fic, Gen, Loyalty, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-19 12:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a three person job," said Mozzie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ostrich

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/gifts).



> Set after 2.07. Many thanks to dragonfly for beta. <3

Neal arrived home from a dull day at work to find Mozzie playing chess with Rosa Kane at his kitchen table. They were using his best chess set.

"Neal, look who's in town." Mozzie stood up and gestured as if producing a glamorous assistant from a seemingly empty magician's trunk. 

"Rosa," said Neal, with feigned enthusiasm. He needn't have bothered.

"Hi, Caffrey. Swell hat." Rosa barely glanced up from the chessboard. She was wearing a thick, moss-colored sweater, several sizes too big, in defiance of the balmy weather, and her straight brown hair was scraped into a careless ponytail. She'd been one of Mozzie's trainees back in the day, a promising teenage pick-pocket and cat burglar, smart and competitive, but she was intolerant and contemptuous of the quirks that made people human. Perhaps she had to build up a head of scorn before she could bring herself to take advantage—she wouldn't be the first, that was for sure—but Neal preferred his own hybrid of amused detachment and tough love, wherein he wasn't cheating people or stealing from them, so much as teaching them a valuable lesson. 

Anyway, during Rosa's training, Mozzie had cultivated her natural inclination toward paranoia and suspicion, which made her difficult to manage at the best of times. She'd been dismissive of all of Mozzie's friends and associates, and Neal was more than a little relieved when she moved with her sister to Chicago shortly after the Adler scam fell through. But Mozzie had kept in touch, and now here she was. 

Maybe she'd improved. Neal tossed his hat onto the sideboard and tried to keep an open mind. 

"What's the score?" he asked. Rosa wouldn't be here unless there was a job in the offing.

"A 150 year old silk kimono worth $250 thousand dollars," said Mozzie, with relish, "housed in the Upper West Side residence of the Chief Executive of DXA International."

"I found the job," said Rosa. "An old friend gave me the security details, and I knew Mozzie would be in." She was obviously including Neal under sufferance.

"It's a three person job," said Mozzie. "Neal?"

"You're overlooking one small detail." Neal tugged at his pants leg, obscurely relieved that the anklet excused him from this particular heist. The era of ad hoc jobs with hastily assembled crews—usually incorporating an abrasive, dim-witted or casually traitorous element—seemed distant. Even nostalgia couldn't gild those memories. 

Rosa snatched her hand from where it hovered over the chess pieces and scraped back her chair, eyes bugging at the anklet. "He's being monitored? Dammit, Mozzie. Why did you bring me here?"

Mozzie held up his hands. "Trust me."

Neal twitched his pants leg back down and sent his friend an impatient look. Had he really forgotten the limitations of Neal's parole? "Got your head in the sand, Moz?"

Mozzie moved closer. " _This_ is not the ostrich you're looking for," he said, pointing to himself. "You've slipped the anklet before."

"No," muttered Neal, lowering his voice so Rosa wouldn't overhear. "I've been authorized to cut it. Big difference." He didn't say he had a key hidden in a hollowed out book in the bookcase. That was need-to-know information. The key was for going after Fowler. Neal hadn't risked stealing it so he could assist in some stupid caper.

Mozzie brought the conversation back to full volume before Rosa got curious. "We need a front man."

"Sorry," said Neal, with total insincerity.

"I can do it." Rosa's smirk was a silent accusation of cowardice. "I've been housemaid, courier, kid's birthday clown hundreds of times. One time I was a grief therapist for this god-awful widow, who wouldn't stop crying. Security repair person's a snap." 

"We need you on the balcony," said Mozzie. He turned to Neal. "Fine. We'll ask Coma Joe."

"After the bust-up in Atlantic City?"

"You're right." Mozzie frowned and fiddled with his leather bracelet for a moment. His expression cleared. "Oh. Devlin."

"Devlin hates you," Neal reminded him.

"And I hate Devlin," said Rosa. "He always stinks of weed."

Neal caught Mozzie's eye. She was right, but seriously? She wasn't exactly a picnic herself. Still, it was interesting to puzzle out who of the old gang was still around. "Alex."

"Ha!" said Mozzie derisively. He sighed. "Look, Neal, just because you're on the wagon—"

"I'm not on the wagon."

"No, you're shackled to it. But we're not. I have to keep my hand in, man."

He had a point, at least in theory. Neal sat on the couch and crossed his legs to keep his knees from jiggling. He didn't want in on the job, but talking about it was making him restive. "What's the plan?"

"I intermittently set off the alarm, so they think it's acting up." Rosa was bent over the chessboard again, her voice muffled.

"I'm in the basement," said Mozzie. "I stop the signal from going to the security company, and call the target to say we're sending a guy."

"And your front man is invited into the apartment as the alleged security-system repair guy and takes the kimono," deduced Neal. "Not bad."

"I keep triggering the alarm so the target will up and leave," said Rosa. "Those things are fucking loud. Oh, hey, our front man should wear earplugs."

Neal winced. With or without earplugs, robbing a residence without being able to hear what was going on was risky. He could see Moz thinking the same thing.

"Maybe there's another way," said Mozzie. He sat down across from Neal. "How about a Fresno failsafe?"

"With a twist?" Rosa looked up, eyes gleaming with interest.

" _Bien sûr._ "

"You'd need a top explosives expert, and it works best if it's snowing." Neal tilted his head toward the window, indicating the last slanting rays of evening sunlight. "A Sinatra shuffle?"

"That's still a three-person job, and there could be casualties," Mozzie pointed out.

"Who cares?" said Rosa. "I want that kimono."

Neal shook his head. "Sorry, Moz. I can't help you. And, you know—"

"What?" Mozzie folded his arms.

"If you have to pull a job, does it have to be in New York?" said Neal. "The jurisdictional issues—"

"What?" said Rosa, scowling.

"Nothing." Neal sighed inwardly and beckoned Mozzie out onto the patio where they could talk in private. "I'm just saying, I don't want to end up investigating you," he murmured.

"But don't you see? That's the beauty of it!" said Mozzie. "I pull the job, you misdirect the authorities _from the inside._ "

It made sense. In fact, it was the perfect con, and Neal couldn't say exactly why the prospect was so unappealing. He wouldn't have to lie—just hint and mislead—and it was for a friend. He'd done far more for Moz in the past. But it still went against the grain. He was proud of the White Collar Unit's clearance rate; he didn't want to knowingly, gratuitously diminish it. "You want me to throw the investigation."

"Of course."

In the corner of his eye, Neal glimpsed a slight figure lurking in the doorway. Rosa, eavesdropping. He let his voice return to its natural register. "You know, the Feds are pretty smart. They don't let cases go just because things get difficult. You'd have to frame someone."

"Cool," said Rosa, coming toward them. "Let's do it."

Neal suppressed his antipathy and tried one last time. "Are you sure it's worth all this? It's just a kimono, Moz."

"Birds gotta fly, Neal," said Mozzie. He looked stern and pitying. "At least, those of us whose wings aren't clipped do."

"I thought you were an ostrich," said Neal, trying for humor.

It missed the mark. "A long-legged flightless bird whose only means of escape is to run? Uh, no. That would be you."

Rosa groaned like a teenager. "Forget it, Mozzie, he's not interested. Let's get out of here. I met a guy in the East Village last night who'd be all over earning a couple of grand." She couldn't have said "Loser" more clearly if she'd spray-painted it across the windows.

"See you later, Neal." Mozzie's eyes were solemn behind his glasses. "We'll leave you to mull over your life choices."

"See you 'round, Caffrey," said Rosa. As they walked away, she looked at Moz and said, "What is his deal, anyway?" her voice carrying with disdainful clarity.

Neal stared blindly at his million-dollar view and reminded himself that his life was okay. He'd lost Kate and apparently Moz was on the way out now, thanks to Neal's relationship with the FBI, but at least he still had Peter and his work at the Bureau, June, Elizabeth. New friends. A new life. The search for Fowler.

"I've come back from worse," he told the Chrysler Building, but it ignored him, glamorous and unimpressed. He went inside and flopped on the bed where he stared up through the skylight and tried to convince himself he'd made the right choice. Thought about Kate and all the scams they used to pull.

An hour later, he yielded to hunger, and he was just about to call for takeout when Moz walked in the door. Neal put down the phone. "You came back. Where's Rosa?"

"She wanted to frame you," said Mozzie. "In fact, she insisted."

"Oh."

"Kids these days, huh?" Moz put his hands in his pockets, then took them out again, avoiding Neal's eye. "I figured better an ostrich in the sand than a snake in the grass."

Neal smiled to himself. He didn't think he was an ostrich, but if Mozzie was going to insist on the characterization, well, it was just good to have him back. Neal angled toward the table, the chess pieces still scattered across the board. "You want a game?"

Mozzie visibly relaxed. He knew absolution when he heard it. "I'll get the wine." 

Moz made his selection from the wine rack and poured two generous glasses of shiraz, while Neal set up the board, more relieved than he cared to admit. It was pointless to blame Rosa for being Rosa, but he was grateful Mozzie had once again placed loyalty over larceny and backed off, especially since he'd done it while chafing at the vicarious constraints of Neal's parole. "I was going to call for takeout."

"Chicken chow mein," said Mozzie. "Extra cashews."

Neal called it in and sat down at the table. "What about Rosa? Is she going to cause trouble?"

"Not for us," said Mozzie. He held out his fists, a pawn in each, and Neal chose the left. Black. Mozzie made his opening gambit. "If she does, we'll figure it out."

"Yeah," said Neal. "We will." 

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Trust me, this is not the ostrich you're looking for." Mozzie


End file.
